July's Pictures

It's difficult with a digital camera to take good pictures of motor racing. This weekend was Touring Cars at Oulton Park. Of course I had my usual array of film cameras there but they will take a time to develop, but for instant gratification we have some digital pics. Back to what I was saying because there is often a delay between hitting “Yes I want a pic now” and the camera saying “I'm going to take a picture now” is so long you can give up on planning a picture, all you can get is the car you want in the picture is you're lucky. I even tried the camera on “Sports Mode” which just caused me to sift through more rubbish pictures however I must admit that we never go into a good position for a digital camera to make good. Personally I think the end of Lodge Corner would have been a good spot but we were in the inside of the track and stuck to get out for that.

I did try some panning with a zoom lens with and a long shutter speed but with my precision I suspect I'll get a blur of car and background instead of a sharp car and a blurred background.

With a Wife and a Daughter in tow I knew it wouldn't be a long day and doing the usual of finding the right place to take a picture and watch the race would not be an option, so the option was for shade as the day was blisteringly hot. Unfortunately all the shady bits of Oulton Park are bad viewing places so we missed more or less all of the action though we did see that Plato disappeared in the second race and Matt Neil decided to have a go at Adam Jones at Lodge after after Adam put a good move on him the lap before.

Back in Cholmondeley Castle in the rare breeds section. Here we Gloucester Black Spots having a kip after a hard days snuffling and all this walking and the two pints of Strongbow were making me feel like the same though I'm not sure I'd be comfortable as they were. Shortly after the picture was taken one of them decided that he could be more comfortable getting between two of them and he would have been right if they were happy with this proposal which they were not, at which point squealing started and a rumpus began. The main one in the picture was barely behind the fence with it's little body poking through the wire and you could imagine a short sleepy roll could find it on the wrong side and freedom.

On an aborted trip to Beeston Castle we found a different Beeston Castle, a pub. Don't get me wrong we did get to Beeston Castle but when we got there my Wife decided that we didn't really want to go there because of the weather, so to the pub it was. A sound idea at the time because of hunger but after two pints of Strongbow my mind was either on a third or a good sleep. Neither being an option we went to Cholmondeley Castle which isn't a castle you can walk around but gardens that you can.

The statue is a small statue at the end of a small lake in the Temple Gardens, a neatly laid out garden slightly reminiscent of the Oriental Gardens in Telford with Carp occasionally coming to the surface with a slurping sound to scoop up some food. These gardens aren't named after a company this time and don't have a million things all in one place making it looked cluttered. The sun put in an appearance every so often that helped.

OK So I've been busy. Off to Ireland last weekend for a tiring non-Christening missing Pit Lane Park and a couple of other weekends with no picture opportunities, well there was the Squirrel Tree that I have never had the time to take a picture of on Torkington Road that I have driven past several times but wished I did have time or the light for. I also haven't taken a picture of the broken pieces of Ossington Court that was half the block it was on the 22nd of June when they finally decided to tear it down.

So we have an archive picture an office block from the top of the Novotel in Seville reflecting the Novotel sign. This picture was supposed to be a timed exposure of the sunset. Unfortunately I took it with the Nikon. Either I am impatient with the camera and it is just slow at taking pictures or in low light the Nikon is faulty and locks open in low light, so the light streaks are me trying to get a one Euro piece to unscrew the batteries whilst I wiggle the camera around in the light of the pool lights.